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Democracy Featured

Beg Your Pardon? I Can’t Fear You.

If the past six months is any guide, then most politicians – corporate executives and foreign leaders – have little to fear from Donald Trump. He has turned out to be a wildly ineffective manager, deal maker and communicator, and with turnover in his administration expected to be high over the coming months (Sean Spicer is just the beginning), the president (shudder) will find it even more difficult to project an image of competence and efficiency.

Are you surprised?

You shouldn’t be. Despite running, and being perceived, as the great business executive who would bring a corporate approach to the sprawling wildness of government, Donald Trump has turned out to be a terrible administrator. Yes, he does tweet on a regular basis and I’m sure his fans find it reassuring that the country is deporting millions of undocumented people, undermining environmental laws and generally blaming the free press for his troubles, but this is no way to get any of the big things we need accomplished in a timely manner.

Even if the health care bill comes back from the dead this week, I really can’t see enough GOP support for a measure that has a 32-million-people-losing-insurance-price-tag on it passing, although I have underestimates the cruelty and blind ignorance of the Republican Party before.

The bigger problem is that Donald Trump doesn’t know how to sell policy or to focus his administration’s message on passing a solid piece of legislation. Of course, it’s very difficult to sell a law that you probably haven’t read and even if you did you don’t really understand it, which likely describes Trump’s role in this process. Add in the fact that it contradicts his campaign promise that he would get a bill that covers everybody cheaply and get it fast.

Strike three, no?

But the real issue is that not a lot of stakeholders in Washington or otherwise actually fear Donald Trump, and with good reason. He was leading from the rear on health care, entering the fray only in the last couple of days when it was clear that most Americans hated the new law and many GOP Senators could not bring themselves to vote for it. He has removed the United States from any meaningful leadership position on climate, and by extension, jobs, by taking us out of the Paris Climate Accords. He nixed the Pacific Trade Agreement and his threats to Mexico and Canada about renegotiating NAFTA are meeting the reality that those other countries actually have national interests of their own that Trump cannot just dismiss.

And, you know, there is the very sensitive issue of the fact that Donald Trump did not receive a majority of popular votes in the 2016 election. If most people don’t vote for you, it’s difficult to rally the will of the American people around your agenda when your agenda is basically…Donald Trump and his interests. The investigation into potential, OK, nonexistent voter fraud in the election has led to a severe backlash from Republican and Democratic state officials who are rightly balking at handing over voter rolls and Social Security numbers to Trump’s crack(pot) investigator who believes that voter fraud is rampant.

In fact, the only fear I have this week is that Trump or one of his minions will fire Robert Mueller because he’s edging a bit closer to saying that the president has to turn over his tax returns which, I am convinced, is the real motivating factor behind Trump trying to forestall the Russia investigation. I’m sure he’s been told that if the Benghazi investigation can lead to the discovery of Hillary Clinton’s home email server, then there’s no reason why Mueller can’t go a little far afield of Russia and focus on Trump’s financial dealings.

Now the president is also talking about issuing pardons to those people who are under investigation, and is even asking if he can pardon himself.

Does Trump understand that in order to receive a pardon, the person must admit to having committed a crime? My sense is that he doesn’t. And I really can’t see Trump admitting to obstruction of justice or any other high crime or misdemeanor. What he really wants is to end the investigations, but pardons won’t do that. This is going to get as ugly as most other issues have since January 20.

In the meantime, we have a blustery executive with no real policy knowledge and even less intellectual discipline trying to tell all of the Republicans in Congress that he’ll crack the whip if they don’t vote for bills he wants. This is folly. I’m more than happy to have the country do nothing than to do something awful in the name of party discipline.

And I think that’s exactly what will happen. What a waste.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Kill (the Trumpcare) Bill, Part I: And the Magic Number Is…?

I’m curious.

Just how many people have to lose their health insurance before the Republicans in Congress shout, “Eureka! We have done it?”

Obviously 22 million people is too many. But what happens if the Congressional Budget Office comes back this week and says that the new, not-really-improved Trumpcare bill will only result in 19 million or 15 million or 11 million people losing their health insurance? Is that number small enough for the GOP to claim success in their quest to not-really-repeal-but-just-do-something-so-the-base-thinks-that-Obamacare-is-dead?

It speaks volumes about the state of the right wing in this country that they will sacrifice so many Americans in the name of…what? Fiscal prudence, as if saving some money off the deficit will make up for the ruined lives? The promise to repeal the ACA even though the GOP STILL hasn’t quite thought through the ramification of their actions? The misguided, indeed immoral, view that many conservatives have of the poor as undeserving couch potatoes who have no innate responsibility and are addicted to government programs? Never mind that millions of the people who will lose insurance voted for the president (shudder) and/or live in states where the opioid epidemic is raging through both city and farm. Cutting Medicaid would be a disaster for those people.

And if you think it’s just the poor who will lose, then please think again. If you plan on growing old, then you need to read all of the articles by Ron Lieber about how the Medicaid debate will affect you later in life. Medicaid is not just for those we generally think of when we think of the poor. It also pays for elderly people who, oddly enough, don’t believe they will suffer from dementia, or contract a debilitating illness, or fall and break their hip or just plain run out of money because they didn’t save quite enough through a retirement plan.

Add this to the fact that Medicaid also covers millions of children who will lose their coverage if this Senate bill passes. And even without the Trumpcare cuts, the president’s budget proposal would reduce health insurance coverage for CHIP. These are children that we see in our public schools who need far more support than just learning how to read. They come to school without the guarantee that if something happens to them, they’ll be covered. Further cuts to school lunch and nutrition programs will complete this cruel turn the GOP thinks will help the country.

The Republican dream of turning Medicaid into a state grant program is also seriously and fatally misguided. States will likely use the money to shore up finances in other programs since, unlike the federal government, they must balance their budgets. And the GOP plan forces states to make choices that they should not have to make concerning who gets aid and who doesn’t. Medicaid was created to cover all people who qualified for it. Changing that will produce winners and losers, which of course means those who live and those who don’t.

In the end, the Senate and House plans will create lower cost health insurance pl;ans, but what people will get for their money will cost them far more when they actually need care. Sky-high deductibles will negate the low premiums as people will be forced to pay full price until their deductible kicks in. And allowing insurance companies to sell policies that don’t include maternity care, mental health insurance or drug treatment coverage will make the cost of those options go up for those that do need it.

As business savvy as the Republican Party, and the president, think they are, they still haven’t learned that insurance is all about spreading the risk so that those who don’t make many claims pay for those who do, which evens out the cost. Having an a la carte health care system is a recipe for higher costs and lower outcomes as those who can pay will, and those who can’t, won’t get care.

The GOP seems oblivious to this, but they do have a number. This week we’ll learn what that is.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Australian Reporter on Trump – He Has “Pressed Fast-Forward on The Decline of The United States”

Everyone should know by now that Donald Trump lies, and he lies a lot! So when he walked away from the G-20 Summit calling it “a great success,” well, everyone already knew he was lying.

Enter Chris Uhlmann, the political editor for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He had a totally different and quite frankly, more believable take on Trump’s G-20 visit than Trump and his minions at the White House.

“We learned that Donald Trump has pressed fast-forward on the decline of the United States as a global leader,” Uhlmann said on air in a segment that has gone viral. “He managed to isolate his nation, to confuse and alienate his allies, and to diminish America.”

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Education Featured

America’s Educators Lead the Way

If you care deeply about social and racial justice, value equal opportunity, detest discrimination and believe that this country needs to focus on its core values of tolerance, compromise, equality and democracy, then fear not.

America’s educators have got your back.

I returned from the National Education Association (NEA) convention in Boston last week feeling a great deal better about this country’s direction than I get from watching or reading the news these days. The 7,000 strong NEA Representative Assembly, made up of educators, and the largest deliberative democratic body in the world when it meets, voted decisively in favor of making sure that if nowhere else, this country’s teachers, educational support personnel, children and young adults would be valued, protected, empowered and educated in America’s public schools. We also plan to use the power of solidarity and numbers to move what we consider to be the country’s vital interests forward through the political process, protests and community action.

It was interesting to listen to colleagues who described their states and school districts in glowing terms, but also with a sense that the new administration in Washington is not looking out for our children. Some described ICE raids on their schools and workplaces that create fear and suspicion in their communities. They also described the dire effects that poverty, hunger, disease and psychological issues have on our students. The RA also learned about the deleterious effects of state and national budget cuts on our schools and on our ability to solve the pressing problems that schools and students face today.

By the end of the RA, though, I felt a bit brighter. As a democratic body, we affirmed the NEA’s place in our society as a beacon of justice and a protector for those who desperately need it. We approved policies that will use the voice of millions of educational professionals across the country to pressure states and local governments to address educational equity, reduce the time that children spend on taking standardized tests, to gather and disseminate information on racial, gender, sexual and economic inequality, to publicize educational programs that work in schools and to reaffirm the power of a unified association in a country that seems to have lost its sense that unions are a vital, pulsating, guiding force for now and for our future.

Education must continue to be a bulwark against the high tide of intolerance and ignorance that can negatively affect children. We are here to lead that fight and to defend our country’s values.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Democracy Featured

Christie’s Last Stand: Bankrupt Bluster

Governor Christie is obviously not content with 15% approval ratings. He must want them to go lower. And he’s doing a great job, drawing a line in closed beach sand about the state budget that was supposed to be approved by June 30. The problem is that Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto refused to include Christie’s proposed grab of $300 million dollars from Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield. That money was supposed to fund the governor’s opioid addiction program, which has been the part and parcel of his entire second term agenda.

Even a proposed compromise, where the bill would allow the next governor to take none, some or all of the $300 million didn’t move Prieto who saw it as the power move that it was. And it lit up the previously dark, ugly, cobwebbed closet that modern Republicans would rather that voters not see because it contains the hypocrisy that has driven their bankrupt agenda for decades. They won’t dare raise taxes, and they pretend that businesses should make their own decisions without government regulations. But when it comes to funding that the state desperately needs, they will put their meaty fists on any company they believe makes too much money or does big business with public workers.

Hence, Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the state’s largest public worker health insurer. It’s not enough that many public workers, including hundreds of thousands of public school teachers, have had their take home pay reduced because of rising health insurance payments which, by the by, Chrtistie forced by taking away their collective negotiating rights (with some Democratic help. Thanks a bunch.) It’s now gotten to the point that Christie wants to weaken BSBC by taking away some of its surplus.

This is not all Christie, though. Senate President Steve Sweeney was able to get enough Democratic votes last week in that body, but the bill hit a wall in Prieto’s Assembly. The result is a nasty political fight that has real consequences for the public and for state workers. This is the kind of fake leadership that Christie has demonstrated for almost 8 years and it’s now spread to Washington. I’m assuming that Christie is just waiting for Trump to fire Jeff Sessions so he can move to Justice.

Which, in the present political atmosphere, really means just us.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured

Republican Leaders and Enablers Silent on Trump’s War on Women

The most powerful man in the world decided to resort to his natural instincts and blasted a woman on Twitter. A woman whose opinion the president doesn’t like, a woman who has used her platform to share her opinion with her listeners, felt the wrath of the president of the United States because she thought the First Amendment of the Constitution protected her free speech from the onslaughts of the president.

The most powerful man in the world, the man who is supposedly on par with Kings and Queens and Presidents, decided to use his personal twitter machine to express his male chauvinistic tendencies, telling the world that the woman tried to visit him at his home but she was bleeding because of a face-lift, so he said “NO!”

I heard poorly rated speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came…..to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!

Now this isn’t the first time this man has referred to ‘a bleeding woman’ for lack of a better phrase. During his campaign, then Republican candidate, Donald Trump, accused another woman with an opinion of having “blood coming out of her whatever” because she asked him hard questions at a debate.

“She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous…” Trump said in the debate. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. . .” he said about then Fox host, Megyn Kelly. Mr. Trump received the usual criticisms from some, but most in the Republican party ignored him and in so doing, enabled the man they eventually elected president of the United States.

For a man who has a reputation of attacking women, talking down to them and talking about them as if they’re beneath him, as if they’re objects to be ridiculed and make fun of,  Mr. Trump has found favor in the Republican party. He is, and will always be, the leader of a moral-less group who will gladly go on television and proclaim their love of their fearless leader and nothing, absolutely nothing Trump say or do, will cause this love to diminished.

This is not your father’s Republican party!

 

 

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured

Trump Gets Huge Tax Cut in Senate Obamacare Repeal Bill

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (L) gives a thumbs up sign as he walks with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

CNN reports that those in the top 0.1%, earning $5 million or more, would receive an average tax cut of nearly $250,000 in 2026, according to a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center. Those in the top 1%, who earn $875,000 and up, would see an average tax savings of $45,500 a year.

Republicans’ efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare have been widely criticized as shifting money from the poor to the rich. The House and Senate bills would repeal the taxes Obamacare levied on the wealthy, while making drastic cuts to Medicaid and reducing federal assistance that helps low- and moderate-income Americans afford coverage.

Some 22 million fewer Americans would have health insurance under the Senate legislation, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis released Monday. That includes 15 million fewer people covered under Medicaid, the nation’s safety net program for the poor.

The GOP would also repeal taxes that Obamacare levied on insurers, drug makers and others. All told, this would reduce federal revenue by $700 billion over the next decade. Nearly 45% of that benefit would go to the top 1%, the Tax Policy Center found.

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Democracy Featured

Worst is the New Normal

Let me get this straight.

The president (shudder) lies in hinting that he might have tapes of his conversations with James Comey in order to make sure that Comey tells the truth when he testifies under oath in front of Congress? Comey says that this spurred him to have a friend leak information he hoped would result in the appointment of a Special Prosecutor because Comey believed that the president might have obstructed justice? The president now says that no tapes exist, but that his threat was enough to keep Comey honest, which proves that what Trump was saying was the truth?

That conclusion makes no sense. If anything, what Comey said was incredibly damaging and he actually hoped, prayed, that there were tapes to back up his testimony.  Trump says that he never asked Comey to stop investigating Micheal Flynn. Comey said he did. So how can Trump say that his threat about tapes kept Comey honest? If that’s so, then Comey being honest means big trouble for Trump.

And the worst part is that Trump created his own fake news.

But in an administration where truth is the second option, this story will go through many more twists and turns. In fact, it’s already becoming the cover story so the administration can continue to do other things like weaken consumer protections, cut taxes on the wealthy and generally cut back public services in the name of personal responsibility.

And speaking of person responsibility, the Senate’s absolutely awful TrumpCare bill not only will result in millions of people either losing their insurance or being priced out of any meaningful health care because the deductibles will be astronomically high, but assumes that if you took responsibility for your life then  you wouldn’t need a government subsidy or help with your whiny preexisting condition. Conservative orthodoxy has generally held that anyone who depends on public help must be scamming the system, so the new health care law will punish you by making you face a choice of high premiums or high deductibles.

Conservative orthodoxy apparently also holds that being a woman of child-bearing age is a liability and an expense, so the new bill is essentially going to make you pay for your contraception or your pregnancy, then make you pay even more for private child care because, well, it’s your fault your a woman.

That’ll learn ya.

It would be great if the economy was growing fast enough to create well-paying jobs with health insurance attached, but the Trump administration is doing virtually nothing to help other than to threaten companies that move jobs overseas. Trump was able to cow Carrier into keeping jobs in the United States, but now word comes that most of those people will be laid off by the end of the year. And Ford just announced that they would be building a plant in China, partly because the Chinese are committing their resources to electric cars.

The world, and the world of commerce, seems to be ignoring the president and his nonsensical isolationist, protectionist policies that have led to the United States leaving the Paris Climate Accords and generally disengaging from global politics except, of course, when it comes to supporting dictatorial regimes around the world who create terrorists, like Saudi Arabia, or suppress human rights, like Turkey. Then we’re best buds. And don’t forget that many American businesses are facing worker shortages because, oddly, Americans don’t want to do the dirty jobs that immigrants used to do before they became public enemies. Wages are going up, which is good, but shortages can lead to inflation, which is not good.

Could things get better? Not before they get a little worse. The health care bill will pass in some lousy form, even with some push-back by moderates, which will result in some terrible consequences. Democrats need to run on this issue hard for the next 18 months and remind people that what Trump promised his base is not what he’s delivering. Don’t fret about Georgia or South Carolina or any of the other unattainable special elections we’ve had. Be methodical. Win in VA and NJ in the fall. Then cultivate those who don’t vote in Congressional elections.

It’s the only way.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Keith Olbarmann – Trump is “Self-Destructing…” We Should Help – Video

And again, I agree!

Keith Olbermann made this statement on one of his “The Resistance” episode posted on YouTube. According to Olbermann, when it comes to the president of the United States threatening our freedoms, heritage or way of life, wanting that president to fail is perfectly okay, even if it means the president ends up destroying himself and his presidency.

“Ordinarily, the last thing in the world any American would want is a leader bent on destroying himself and ending his presidency. But the threat to our freedoms, our heritage, our way of life, our lives themselves, is so overwhelming and unprecedented, that putting aside the almost immeasurable anger and resentment this childish, petulant, selfish man engenders, it is still with genuine sadness that we must look at his self-destruction and say it simply and resolutely, better him than our country.”

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Featured

Barack Obama’s Reply Following Otto Warmbier’s Death

Former President, Barack Obama, did not sit idly by while Donald Trump accused him of not doing enough to bring Otto Warmbier back home. Otto, arrested in North Korea in 2015 for removing a photo from a hotel, was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. He was released two weeks ago and arrived back in the U.S in a comatosed state. He died less than a week after his arrival.

Ned Price, a spokesman for former President, Barack Obama, brought Mr. Obama’s message and totally shut down Trump’s idotic claim.

“During the course of the Obama Administration, we had no higher priority than securing the release of Americans detained overseas,” Obama spokesman Ned Price said in the statement. “Their tireless efforts resulted in the release of at least 10 Americans from North Korean custody during the course of the Obama administration.”

Added Price, who was National Security Counsel spokesperson during Obama’s administration: “It is painful that Mr. Warmbier was not among them, but our efforts on his behalf never ceased, even in the waning days of the administration. Our thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Warmbier’s family and all who had the blessing of knowing him.”

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Democracy Featured

Hail Caesar!

I go back and forth about whether there is such a thing as fate. This is one of those weeks where I believe.

The shooting of the Republican congressional baseball team in Alexandria is terrible enough, and predictably, the right wing scream machine is in full blather blaming the Democrats and their anti-Trump rhetoric for setting a nasty tone. Of course, the conservative media treated Obama with kid gloves and honey for eight years and were really only kidding about his being a Muslim or not a citizen or being in league with his Arab buddies whenever oil prices shot higher. Or plunged lower.

Same reason, different day.

What was arguably worse than Alexandria was the Greek Chorus made up of cabinet members expressing their undying love and personal fortunes for the honor of serving the least qualified president we’ve ever had in the White House. This display undermined every philosophical and practical underpinning of our democracy. These people don’t work personally for the president; they work for the American people. You know, the ones who pay their salaries and upon whose behalf they serve. Remember serve? This is a government based on service. By turning their fealty over to one man, they have greased the slippery slope that the president (shudder) sits atop.

But wait, there’s more.

The Fickle Finger of Fate also pointed north of DC, aiming its digit squarely at Central Park, where the Public Theater is presenting “Julius Caesar” with a Caesar who looks remarkably like the president. Of course, this has caused controversy when Caesar is sliced and diced at the play’s ides, and has led Delta Airlines – you know, the airline that kicks families off of flights, and Bank of America, you know, the bank that never learned from a financial crisis – to cancel their support for the theater. Reason enough to abandon Delta and BOA.

As any high schooler can tell you, though, the killing of Caesar doesn’t solve Rome’s problems and leads to wars starring Mark Antony, Cassius and Brutus. The killing is the essence of the tragedy for all involved, but the Republican scream machine sees it as a death wish for Democrats and a scurrilous depiction of gratuitous violence.

Wrong.

It’s art, and art sometimes has to challenge and outrage us because it shows us a side of humanity that we don’t think about. Or want to see. Or recognize in us, but is too painful to say out loud. Worse is that Trump’s budget cuts spending on the arts and humanities so we can all get dumber and singularly praise him for being more effective than anyone except FDR.

But these are the lies that Trump thinks he can continue to tell and get away with. Praise he believes he’s earned for…700 jobs in Indiana? A health care plan he said was both “great” and “mean?” And now, an investigation into whether he obstructed justice.

As usual, though, it’s the Bard who gives us the fitting end, the speech that Caesar gives extolling his own virtue as the only one who can save Rome:

I could be well moved, if I were as you.
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me.
But I am constant as the Northern Star,
Of whose true fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks;
They are all fire and every one doth shine.
But there’s but one in all doth hold his place.
So in the world: ’tis furnished well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive.
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshaked of motion; and that I am he
Let me a little show it, even in this:
That I was constant Cimber should be banished,
And constant do remain to keep him so. (3.1.64-79)

He is murdered soon after.

Exeunt.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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New Lows for Trump’s Approval Ratings

Olbermann called him “our national embarrassment, our international disgrace.” And it seems the rest of the country concurs. Let’s see how low Trump’s poll numbers would go.

The new Quinnipiac University poll finds Trump has a job approval rating of 34 percent, compared to 57 percent who disapprove of the way the president is handling his job.

In a poll released at the end of last month, 37 percent of respondents approved of the job the president was doing and 55 percent disapproved.

The new poll also finds 31 percent of voters think Trump did something illegal regarding his relationship with Russia.

Another 29 percent of respondents think the president did something unethical, but not illegal, regarding his relationship with Russia. Thirty-two percent think the president did nothing wrong.

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